This time I will write about my visit of “Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini chapel”, or in translation (Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins). This church is located in Rome, Italy. It reminded me of Vedic traditions in a way, mainly because of what are you about to read.
This church is most famous as a depository for the bones of the dead, known as the Capuchin Crypt, in which is displayed the bones of over four thousands dead monks, collected between early 14th and 17th century.
“The crypt is located just under the church near St. Peter square. Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was a member of the Capuchin order, ordered the remains of thousands of dead monks to be transferred from the monk graveyard called ‘Via dei Lucchesi’ to the crypt. The bones were arranged along the walls, and the friars began to bury their own dead here, as well as the bodies of poor Romans, whose tomb was under the floor of the present Mass chapel. Here the Capuchins would come to pray and reflect each evening before retiring for the night.
The underground crypt is divided into five chapels, lit only by dim natural light seeping in through cracks, and candles of which some are located on top of the skull of a dead monk. The crypt walls are decorated with the remains of buried monks (their bones). Some of the skeletons are intact and for the most part are used to create elaborate ornamental designs.
The crypt originated at a period of a rich and creative cult for their dead; great spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand.
A plaque in one of the chapels reads, in three languages, ‘What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.’ This is a memento mori.”
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